The Impossible Cure
by corvusdraconis
Summary: [HG/SS] Severus, surviving Nagini's bite only to be paralysed, has only one temper to his sanity - a mysterious female voice who reads to him every day. She seems familiar, but he cannot remember her. When he realises who it is and the price she has paid to attend him for years, can he summon the courage to do what he hasn't been able to do for over seven years? (Ottermione Story)


**[HG/SS]** Severus, surviving Nagini's bite only to be paralysed, has only one temper to his sanity - a mysterious female voice which reads to him every day. She seems familiar, but he cannot remember her. When he realises who it is and the price she has paid to attend him for years, can he summon the courage to do what he hasn't been able to do for over seven years?

 **A/N:** This story is for Story Please, who wrote me some fluff to keep me sane while doing care plans.

 **Beta Love** : fluffpanda, the Overworked (praise her!)

 **The Impossible Cure**

The first thing Severus Snape felt, actually felt, was the softest touch of a hand on his face. The second thing was droplets of something—water, perhaps—trailing down his face. The third was the pain. It was pain that set his arteries on fire and froze his veins in equal measure. It was worse than the Cruciatus, and yet, his body wasn't moving. He wanted to stay there, if only for that touch upon his skin. It was warm and tender. It didn't belong on his face, but he wanted it more than anything he had ever felt in his life.

 _Lily? Am I forgiven, now?_

No, Lily had never touched him. Not like that. She had playfully swatted him, shoved him when he made bad humour of things she liked and even whapped him over the head with her books when she thought he was an utter git. She had never once touched him with that kind of warmth. It was warmth without a price. It was compassion, and it was heavenly. He couldn't deny its power over him, and part of him wondered if a touch like that could undo thousands of days of regret and self-hatred with its undeniable power.

"They say," a familiar voice said, "that sometimes people can hear what goes on around them, even when they can't respond.

Severus heard the scrape of a chair being dragged over.

"Most of the stories involve loved ones and miraculous tales of love confirmed," the voice continued. "You'd probably call it a bunch of hogwash made up by dunderheads."

Whoever that voice belonged to knew him well enough. Severus would have snorted derisively if he could have. Alas, his body was refusing to do anything he required of it.

The voice read to him. _Potions Monthly_ and _the Daily Prophet_ were always on the schedule. In between sentences, she would make some commentary about the topic on hand. Sometimes it was about the imbeciles making potions these days. Sometimes it was something scornful about the _Prophet_ and how she wanted to stick Rita Skeeter back into her jar where she belonged. Bitterness and venom-tainted the voice that had habitually been warm. Severus found it distasteful. He didn't like the sound of it. It sounded too much like… him.

Severus was all too familiar with how he sounded. He'd had decades of practice, after all.

Each day, she would come, and his brain refused to tell him how he remembered the voice. The voice was so familiar yet changed. It was deeper and more resonate. There was a worldliness about it. The owner had seen many things, done many things, and some of them were horrible.

At night, she would open a window. He could feel the breeze against his cheek. Unlike during the day, at night she would read whatever book she was reading at the time. They were usually healer's study books. She would speculate on certain theories, talking to herself and talking to him as though he could respond. Sometimes he did, in his mind, thankful for something to listen to and think about. Days passed. Nights passed. Severus had no idea of the time, but her voice and her touch had been there since the beginning, and he dreaded the day he wouldn't feel her soft brush of fingers against his cheek and hear the warmth of her voice.

At night, when the breeze would turn cool, he would feel an organic warmth around his neck, nestled against his skin. Soft squeaking sounds and whiskers rubbed against his cheek with the same warmth the hand once did. He could smell the ocean—some potent mixture of brine and loam. He could feel… some sort of paw touching his face as whiskers and a warm nose rubbed against his face. Ever so often there would be the softest lick against his damnable nose, almost as if even in his condition that was the first thing that got attention over the rest of his face. Damnable nose.

The warmth made everything better. He wanted to snuggle into it, and sometimes, as if the warmth was alive and could read his mind, it would snuggle closer to him. At first, Severus though she had left him a cat to keep him company, which was, when he cared to admit it, thoughtful. Later, however, he realised it was no cat that had curled up next to him. Cats did not squeak. Cats did not smell like the brine of the sea. She was an Animagus, and she was sharing her warmth and keeping him company each night. He couldn't say it, but it comforted him in a way he hadn't felt in his entire life.

It continued, this daily and nightly ritual. She would talk to him in the day, tell him she had rounds to do, leave, and then at night she would return. Every day she would read to him, and every night she would become the un-cat that wrapped around his neck and shared her warmth. He knew her scent like the smell of his favourite tea. He found he looked forward to it. In the dark of the night, he imagined that warmth to be for him alone. Sometimes, he even believed it.

Sadly, those warm moments always came to an end. Someone always came by to ask her to help with something or another. She always came back in the end, but in order to come back she had to leave. It pained him. Each time she came back, he smiled a little inside. He just… couldn't remember or place her name. It was as if a block was over his mind. He wondered if somehow, in almost dying while blocking his mind from the Dark Lord he had somehow blocked his memories to himself. Was that even possible? She seemed so familiar, yet he couldn't remember a name or a face to go with the voice.

More time passed. Years passed, and he remained trapped in his body. She never failed to couldn't he remember her name? She never once said her name to him. The people at the hospital called her "Healer Whiskers" which he thought was a strange name for a healer. There were worse names, he supposed. Snape was one of them.

"Healer Whiskers," a male voice greeted.

Severus scowled in the early morning air. Well, he mentally grimaced. He wasn't sure what his body was doing other than not moving.

"Healer Ashbrook," the female voice replied with a chuckle as the warmth left his neck. It was yet another reason he didn't like this "Ashbrook" person who stole his private neckwarmer. "Will I ever get you folk to call me by my real name?"

"Nay, Whiskers," Ashbrook chuckled. "I fear that you are forever Healer Whiskers ever since you showed up swimming in the healing ointment in the storeroom."

"Psh," Whiskers replied. "I was itchy, and there was just enough for me."

More snickers. "Aye, there was just enough for one oversized otter with a healing complex."

"Shush, you," Whiskers answered. "I healed your mother."

"Aye, aye, I know it," Ashbrook laughed. "You're almost too good at what you do, love. In five years, you've done more than most accomplish in a decade or more. You turn down every offer to work the more well to do hospitals. You whip up the cure to lycanthropy accidentally while trying to develop an antivenin, and then, when you're attempting to concoct a scarless healing balm, you manage to create the world's first cure for Crutiatus damage in the brain. And yet, every time you're not healing the world, I find you here with the one patient who seems to be immune to your healing skill."

Whiskers chuckled softly. "I'm a sucker for punishment, Ashbrook, and you know it."

"It's James," he admonished. "You can call me James, you know. We've been apprenticed under Healer Elderberry and have suffered through hell together. We've been pinned together. I think, by now, you can call me James."

"Not until you stop calling me Whiskers," the female voice huffed.

"Not a chance," Ashbrook laughed.

"Then you shall never hear your name upon my lips, Healer Ashbrook," Whiskers laughed.

Ashbrook sighed. "Why do you do it, Whiskers? Why the vigil over a man who has never once shown any sign of waking?"

Whiskers gave a soft, dry laugh. "He was my first patient. He was the reason Master Elderberry apprenticed me. Master Elderberry watched me as I poured a zillion different things down his throat… Dittney, powdered bezoar, blood replenishing potion… after his neck wasn't bleeding, I did Muggle CPR on him as he tried to die on the table. I cried, I swore, and I begged. I promised I would I would be there for him every day until he woke up if he would just stay alive for me."

Ashbrook's voice turned gentle. "You did lose a lot of people in the war, didn't you? People talk, but, you know how stories are."

"He saved my life, you know. He put himself between my horribly irresponsible friends and me and a rampaging werewolf," Whiskers recalled. "He saved my best friend… many times. We never once said thank you back then."

"So this is penance?"

"No, I want to be here. Make no mistake."

Severus felt that warmth on his cheek again and felt a kind of longing inside himself. When it left, he felt a pang of physical pain. He had come to rely on that warmth to anchor him.

"I will stay here until the day the wakes, and when he does, he will push me away. It will break my heart, but I will go."

"They say healers have both the strongest of hearts and the weakest," Ashbrook said. "We cannot help but know our patients. We end up loving them because we know them so intimately. We are aware of their bodies better than any know themselves. We've seen every scar. We heal every wound, and then, sometimes, as much as we try to do otherwise, we watch them slip through our fingers and die."

Whiskers sighed. "One day, he will wake. When he does, I will be there if I can."

"If you…" There was a sound like something being knocked over. "Hermione? What's happened? What—"

 _Hermione?_ Severus froze mentally _._ Suddenly, he remembered her. He remembered everything about her. Hermione Granger, the stalwart friend of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, champion of the downtrodden and the house-elf...

"It is an old wound, James," Hermione replied. "It was a cursed knife. The wound finally healed, but its poison is a daily effort to fight, and I fear I have used up my time healing others."

"No!" Ashbrook whispered. "No, it can't be. Hermione! Surely the healers here can—"

Severus could hear the resignation in Hermione's aged voice.

"They already have," she said. "The cure is… impossible."

"Impossible? How?"

"True love's kiss," Hermione laughed dryly and smiled. It was a humourless smile. "Trust me when I tell you I am convinced there is no such thing. Ron was first to try. It's why he stopped coming around. He couldn't bear to think he wasn't _the One_."

"Only one person?" Ashbrook scoffed.

"No, trust me," Hermione laughed. "Harry even tried. Ginny gave him permission. She couldn't bear to think I hadn't exhausted all my options. The entire Weasley clan tried, even Bill. Fleur seemed relieved when my scar didn't go away. I don't blame her. Charlie flew in from Romania from atop this huge dragon to try. Such an entrance, hah! Even Percy tried, but I think we were both relieved that nothing happened there. Hell, even Draco sodding Malfoy tried. He said I was insufferable, but he said the world would be insufferably worse if I wasn't in it. I think it was because I healed his father. He shoved Theo into my face and held Blaise at wand-point to kiss me 'or else'."

James sputtered.

"He forced all of his old friends to 'shut up and kiss her'," Hermione laughed. "I even kissed Astoria because he said 'well, you never know'."

"Nothing?" Ashbrook asked.

"No, I fear, I am doomed to die alone," Hermione said. "Fear not. I am not stupid enough to think that no one cares for me, James. I simply know there is no one out there walking around with some miracle cure for me. Merlin, Viktor came to visit me just to make sure it wasn't him. He had his entire Quidditch team test it too."

"You're joking," Ashbrook snorted. "Do you know how many people would die to have the Bulgarian Quidditch team…"

"I'm just glad Rita Skeeter hadn't gotten wind of it. Somehow… by some miracle, she hasn't."

There was the sound of falling.

"Her—"

More scuffling.

"Hermione, how long have you been like this?" Ashbrook's voice was panicked.

"Long enough," Hermione answered him. "Sorry, just, help me up."

Silence, thick enough to cut, hung in the air.

Hermione sighed. "In the case I don't—"

"Hermione, no, don't talk like that. We'll find a way to deal with this! You're one the best healers on this side of the pond! There must be something we can do!"

" James," Hermione crooned. "Be realistic, old friend. In the case I do not live to see him wake, I have arranged for him to be taken care of. Could you please, just, read to him when I'm gone. Please?"

Ashbrook's voice was unstable with tears. Severus could hear them, and inside, he knew he was in anguish as well. "Alright, what do I read to him?"

" _Potions Monthly_ and the _Daily Prophet_ ," Hermione said with amusement. "Be sure to add sarcastic commentary on how inept people are."

Ashbrook was silent. Severus could hear nothing but breathing, and for a moment even that seemed to stop.

"I had to try," Ashbrook said in a whisper.

"It's okay, James," Hermione said. "I've been living on borrowed time since that cursed knife touched my skin. Thank you… for caring enough to try."

"I would you know," James said.

"Would?" Hermione replied.

"I would court you anyway," Ashbrook said. "Travel with you. Watch late night Muggle movies over popcorn and ice cream. I'd go to those silly Healer's Conventions with you and listen to you complain at people's ineptitude. It wouldn't matter to me that we weren't… true loves. I would still love you as much as any man could."

"Healer Ashbrook," Hermione's voice chastened. "I would never let you bind yourself to me. I would never condemn you to death. You deserve better than this abused heart."

"That's why you haven't married, isn't it?" James asked, suddenly comprehending.

Hermione blew air out her nostrils with an audible exhale. "If they cannot break this curse, I will not. I will not allow someone to bind themselves to my cursed life force and die with me."

Severus felt a warm hand on him, and his heart beat faster. Her energy had become such a fixture in his life while he was trapped inside his own body. Her very touch made his heart beat, and he realised that there would come a time when her familiar warmth would no longer greet him each morning. The welcome warmth of fur and the ocean scent would no longer ease him to sleep. Her voice, riddled with the kind of life experience of both life and death, would no longer read to him. Despair chewed away at his insides. For once he wanted to move. He wanted to hold her to his breast and not let go. He wanted to chase away the pain that ate away at her soul if only she would have him. Despite her choice to sit vigil at his side in the hospital, he knew he was hardly anyone's choice of catch.

Hermione.

He remembered her more childlike self, but she was not that anymore. Countless nights of her talking to him like he could talk back had proven that. She touched something inside of him. Part of him screamed at him that she was more than just some hand of pity. It screamed that there was a connection between them… something real. It was something impossible.

Did the Gods hate him so much that they would gift him some sort of kind hand and even more compassionate touch only to yank it away in the most torturous way possible? Had Hermione Granger done something so horrible in this life or the last that despite all that she had accomplished a hateful curse would claim her life. He had seen her staunchly defend her friends over and over again, much as Lily had once done for him until his contradictory behaviour had been the last straw. He wondered if Hermione Granger even had a last straw. She put up with Ronald Weasley's abhorrent attempts at "love" and Neville Longbottom's potion ineptitude, after all. If she could still be friends with them after all the things gone wrong, perhaps she had far more resilience and strength than anyone he ever knew. Or… maybe she was a masochist. He could only relate.

An impossible cure for an impossible situation: true love's kiss.

Only Bellatrix Lestrange would craft such an impossible "counter" to a malevolent and insidious curse. He was stuck in a bloody hospital bed unable to move since Nagini's parting gift had taken his ability to control his own body. The saviour of his life was spending her free time reading to him from Potions Monthly instead of being out there in the world living what remained of her life. Didn't he at least owe her the end of such a torturous vigil? Even if it meant he would never hear her kind voice reading to him again? Could he do it if it if it meant never feeling the warm touch of her compassion flow through both hand or fur covered body?

Why was he still here trapped in his body and never recovering? Was he never going to recover or was it something even more simple?

Severus Snape was afraid. He was afraid that if he woke from his torpor that the voice that read to him every night the last—Merlin knew how many years—would be gone. If he didn't shake off what was keeping him trapped in his body, she would be gone. One way or another, Hermione Granger would be gone, and the world and himself would be poorer for it.

As the feel of light whiskers against his cheek and the soft lap of a tongue against his nose told him that it was time for bed, Severus resolved that he would get out of this bed and free Hermione Granger from her self-imposed vigil.

The warmth from Hermione's warm otter body snuggled into his neck.

Tomorrow morning.

For just one more night… Severus wanted to remember what the feel of her warmth against him felt like.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The morning breeze woke him even though his eyes were closed. Hermione must have opened the window as per the usual routine. He could feel the hint of sunlight coming through a nearby window and wondered if he had tanned unintentionally.

That would be a first. Most people thought he was a vampire. Hell, most of the Death Eaters had thought he was a vampire, and they had seen him bleed out all over the Dark Lord's floor. There was no pleasing some people.

There was a rustle of fabric paper in the room, and Severus knew it was time for the daily _Daily Prophet_.

"Hello, Mr Snape," a man's voice said. "I'm sorry, but your regular source of news is…"

It was Ashbrook. His voice was breaking. "I'm afraid Healer Whiskers is feeling under the weather, Mr Snape. She told me to tell you not to worry for her and that Master Elderberry refuses to let her do rounds in her… current condition."

Severus felt despair tugging at his heart. He could read between the lines. He could hear the truth in Ashbrook's voice. Hermione was succumbing to the curse at last. He had to get up. He had to move!

And do what? Sit by her bedside as she died? Convince her to let him give her a parting kiss?

Even to himself, he sounded ridiculous. He could at least release her from her daily and nightly vigil and perhaps find some peace before… No!

"Eughhhhh…" Severus wheezed.

"Mr Snape? Holy mother of Merlin—!" Ashbrook yelled. "Healer Collins! Healer Winchester! Some help here!"

Severus' pale hand locked around the first healer's collar to come too close to his range and pulled him down.

"G—" Severus' voice hissed, rough with disuse. "Granger."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Severus growled as the healers waved their wands at him, over him, and across him over and over. Some were muttering spells that seemed to tone his muscles into recovery from countless years of being unused. His voice, gruff and venomous, snarled at each of them. He waved them away from him, but they returned, determined to figure out if he was as well as he seemed.

"Mr Snape!" one of them admonished. "Please, be still. We're trying ensure there are no ill effects. Healer Whiskers was very thorough in keeping your body maintained while you were paralysed— Mr Snape!"

Severus was standing. He was in a hospital gown, yet somehow he made it look as dramatic as his teaching robes. "Where is she?" he rasped.

They stared at him.

"Please," he said, wincing inwardly at how pathetic he sounded. "Wave your wands at me later. Please. Take me to her."

Ashbrook moved his way through the confused healers. "Mr Snape, I'm Healer Ashbrook." The man had dusty brown hair and haunted blue eyes stared at him. "I'll take you to her."

Severus let out his breath and nodded. "Thank you."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

She was so very pale lying there in the bed. Severus grimaced as he crumpled next to the bed in complete role reversal. He placed his hand against her cheek and felt a jolt of magical energy thrum between them. "Miss Granger," he whispered.

Hermione's skin was pale—as white as his. How had no one noticed her decline?

"How did you hide this for so long?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

Hermione's eyes fluttered open, her brown eyes locked with his, and he felt it—relief at seeing him. She leaned into his hand, her eyes closing slightly. "Hello, Professor," she whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to see you wake up."

"Severus," he replied. "Of all the people in the world, you can call me Severus."

She smiled tiredly, wincing as some inner pain rippled through her body. "I fear you caught me on a bad day Pr… Severus." Her voice trailed off as her eyelids fluttered close. "I'm afraid you'll have to yell at me for saving your life lat—"

Hermione's body slumped.

"Granger," Severus hissed. His hand clasped over hers.

Ashbrook waved his wand. "She's sleeping, Mr Snape. She must be exhausted."

Severus' pale fingers brushed back Hermione's brown hair from around her ear. Tendrils of energy rippled around his fingers, tugging him in a way he had never felt before. Life debt? Or something else.

It had to be something else. He'd had a horrible lift debt with James Potter after he had saved him from Remus on a full moon night long ago. Whatever it was between Hermione and himself was different than a life debt.

"How long does she have?" Severus managed to say, forcing his voice to remain neutral.

Ashbrook let out his breath. "The curse started small, pulling on her life energy to power itself. She must have staved it off all these years with the force of will and positivity alone. But…"

"It caught up with her," Severus finished.

"Yes," Ashbrook answered.

"How many years has it been," Severus asked, his eyes never leaving Hermione's face, "since the end of the war?"

"Seven years," Ashbrook answered.

For seven years, Hermione Granger had read to him, sat at his bedside, and been the only one to speak to him with kindness. Now, he was watching her die, and the irony wasn't lost on him. It was like life habitually wanted to give him hope, crush it, and then kick him while he was down.

He remembered the feel of her warm hand on his cheek, the soft feel of fur against his neck, the feel of whiskers against his nose as a hot tongue licked his nose. It had always been genuine care from a genuine witch. She had never admitted attraction to him, but it hadn't been words that whittled away the wall around his heart. It had been a thousand small touches, thousands more readings of journals and newspapers, and countless random conversations in which she never expected an answer that had endeared her to him.

"Her parents?" Severus whispered.

"Estranged, I fear," Ashbrook answered. "She said there were just some things they could not forgive."

"Please," Severus said, "could you give me… a few minutes? I promise you can wave your wands at me all you want after."

The healer seemed conflicted. "Okay."

The door closed quietly behind the healer as he stepped out of the private room.

Severus placed his hand over Hermione's. "I fear I have gotten too accustomed to hearing your voice in the mornings, Ms Granger. Forgive me, but if there even a chance to save your life, I will brave you punching me in the face afterwards."

Severus closed his eyes a moment, seemingly counting to 10 slowly as he forced his breathing through pursed lips. He lowered his mouth to Hermione's and gently placed his lips against hers. He breathed into her mouth as he kissed her, feeling a jolt of something akin to the pull of two opposing magnets.

He slowly pulled away, opening his eyes as he prepared to notice no change, or, perhaps worse, see her fist coming towards his oversized, crooked nose.

Hermione's brown eyes were shining back at him, filled with shimmering tears. "Hermione," she whispered as her hand touched his cheek and brushed his hair. "Call me Hermione, Severus."

Severus was convinced he was having a heart attack as she stared him in the eyes, placing her hands against his cheekbones and curled her fingers around his ears. "Hermione, I—"

"Please don't send me away," she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

He placed his hands over hers. "Never," he replied, trembling. "You could read to me the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica every night for the rest of my life."

Her eyes shimmered as she smiled at him. Tenderly, she pulled his head down closer and pressed her lips to his by her choice. "I'll hold you to that, Severus," she said as she pulled away from the gentle kiss.

He stared down at her in disbelief.

Hermione pulled up the sleeve of her dark green healer's robes. Her skin was clear and unblemished. The mark of Bellatrix's cursed knife was gone.

Severus stared at her skin in wonder.

Impossible.

"True love's kiss," Hermione whispered with a sad smile.

Severus trembled. "I think we should test this hypothesis," he said in a strangled voice.

Hermione's lips turned upward in a genuine smile as radiant as the sun. "I think that can be arranged," she replied serenely as she hooked her finger around his gown. "We should probably get you out of this hospital. It's frowned on for a Healer to fraternise with her patients."

The corners of Severus' lips curved upward slightly as Ashbrook let himself back into the room. "I look forward to a rejoinder, Healer Whiskers," he said, deadpan.

Hermione shot Ashbrook a pointed look as a virtual fleet of Healers swarmed upon both her and Severus, filling the room with Healer Green.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Severus stirred in the early morning; his dark hair draped across his face as the sun came through the window. Next to him, a head of bushy hair nestled against his body, and he felt a pang of something akin to pain in his chest. He let out a ragged breath as his hand slowly caressed her hair, allowing the tendrils of wild hair to curl around his fingers.

Months had passed into years, and every morning he woke to her nestled into his chest. Every day he expected it evaporate as a potion-induced hallucination, but it didn't. Every night, he would go to bed, praying he would not wake alone. And every morning when he thought that day had finally come when she would disappear and never return, he would find her in otter form, curled on the pillow or hidden under the duvet.

The press was finally giving them peace. Harry Potter had cleared his name long ago, but that didn't stop Rita Skeeter from trying to smear his name, Hermione's name, or both of their names in some hallucinated conspiracy. Fortunately, Hermione had a wonderfully quaint little seaside unplottable cottage in Scotland. Their only neighbor was Minerva McGonagall. The elder Animagus had been ecstatic to see Severus walking around again, and she had spewed apologies over how they had last parted after Dumbledore's death. Severus had dismissed her apologies, saying he would have been a horrible spy had she had known the truth.

Minerva cursed Albus in a chain of Scottish that Severus swore made the sky even more blue. They had made up, and now, every summer, they were the best of neighbors.

Severus opened an apothecary in a small village that made Hogsmeade look like a metropolitan metroplex. Business was good, and between he and Hermione, the had come up with a popular line of products that kept them amply paid. Hermione's accidental cures had guaranteed that neither of them really needed to work, but it allowed them both to do what they wanted to do. Severus kept with the apothecary, and Hermione became the town's sole healer. Hermione took on apprentices and taught them healing as her Master had done before her. The small village she worked in was known as the healthiest Wizarding village in Scotland. Life was peaceful and if Severus dared to admit it, normal.

Five years after he walked out of St. Mungo's a free and healthy wizard, Severus had dropped to his knees in front of an otter, who was busily crunching away at the side of a sea urchin, and proposed to her, extending the ring of his mother as he asked for her webbed paw in matrimony. The ring had been the one positive reminder of his childhood he didn't want to sweep under the carpet.

The squeaky otter had pounced on him, snuffling his face mercilessly as she shoved her whiskers into his nostrils and licked his nose. Severus, perhaps for the first time, lay spread eagle on his back on the beach and laughed. "Is that a no?" he had asked.

He got a face full of sea kelp as an answer as the pesky female otter ran off with his mother's wedding ring.

Later, she had brought up a grimy looking oyster and plopped it on his bare foot. He had frowned at the algae covered offering, but she had nosed it with her muzzle, looking up at him as she stamped her paws on the oyster.

Tentatively, he had reached down and opened it. There, nestled in the pale grey flesh of the oyster were two perfect pearls mounted on a goblin-silver ring. Hermione's answer had stared him in the face. He had looked up, and Hermione stood in human form. She fingered his mother's ring as it sat upon her ring finger. Silently, he placed the somewhat oystery ring on his finger and took her into his arms.

He had sold the house at Spinner's End, and they had moved in together, upgrading the quaint little seaside cottage into something that could support the trampling feet of either otter kits or human children. Severus was still dubious as to what they would end up with.

The marriage had been a quiet affair. Kingsley had overseen it, Harry Potter had witnessed it, and Viktor Krum had taken care of the festivities, stating Bulgarians knew how to throw spontaneous and secretive wedding parties like nobody's business. Perhaps the biggest surprise of it all was that Draco Malfoy had given Hermione away when her parents had not shown. It seemed that all had been forgiven between her and Draco, even if her parents could no longer heal the chasm between their magical daughter and themselves. Ronald Weasley, in an unexpected show of maturity, had shown up with his wife and children, placed his gift upon the pile, and shaken Severus' hand.

"Thank you," the redhead had said with a hard to miss relief. "Thank you for saving her."

Severus had said nothing, but he accepted the hand and shook it. Nothing more had to be said.

Now, a year after their wedding, Hermione's belly was swollen with the evidence of their love. Severus had no more denial about that. The magic had been the push towards the hard to believe truth. The truth was that, against the odds, he had fallen in love with her long before his kiss has touched her lips. Her love had woken him from limbo, and his had saved her from a curse.

He wasn't the kind of person to believe in Fate, but even he had to admit that there were things he could only accept.

Hermione's eyes opened and her hand touched his cheek in the oh so familiar tenderness. Her smile was warm as it had always been. "Hello, you," she whispered.

"Hello, Madam Snape," he replied, placing his hand on her distended abdomen.

"I'll never get tired of hearing that," Hermione purred, breathing against his face. "Say it again."

"Madam Snape," he repeated in a low growl, his lips lowering to hers as he captured her mouth with his.

Hermione purred, pulling him down next to her so she could cuddle into him. Severus stiffened and then relaxed, wrapping his arms around her, burying his nose into her hair.

"I love you," she said as she kissed the skin on his arm where his Dark Mark once lay. His arm, just like hers, was pristine and unflawed.

Severus shuddered, pulling her tight against himself. He clung tighter to her as he struggled to say the words he felt in his heart. He could lie to the face of the Dark Lord, but he couldn't say the words aloud he desperately wanted to say.

"It's okay," Hermione whispered into his skin. "I know you do too."

Severus pressed his mouth to her collarbone and ran his nose against the side of her cheek. "Hermione, I—"

"It's okay that you can't say it," she breathed against his cheek.

Severus placed his lips to her cheek. "I want to say it," he rasped.

Hermione turned around and looked into his eyes. She placed her palm to his skin and smiled. Warmth traveled across his skin and down his spine. It was the same nonjudgmental tenderness she had always given. She forgave him, even when he couldn't forgive himself.

Severus looked into her eyes.

" _Lily!" Severus pleaded. "Lily, please! I love you!"_

 _The red-haired witch turned on him, hair blazing. "No, Sev, you don't. You love the idea of me. You love a memory of me. If you had really loved me, you would never have…"_

" _I was angry! I was humiliated!" Severus hissed. "I didn't mean to hurt you!"_

" _And all those other Mudbloods you so casually scorn with Avery and Mulciber? That smug smile you have when they whisper into your ear? I know what you say about people like me, Sev. You call us dirty. You say we're beneath you."_

" _Lily, it was never you!"_

" _Why am I different? Huh?" the angry witch raged. "I've defended you. For five years I did nothing but tell people they were wrong about you! I told them that you couldn't be like that. You were kind. You were my friend!"_

" _You are my friend!"_

" _A friend you can never talk to while your other friends are looking," Lily seethed. "A friend who can't be your friend out there!" She gestured out onto the greens of Hogwarts. She pointed out towards Hogsmeade and shook her head. "Sev, we were friends. Good friends, but we aren't anymore."_

" _Lily, no," Severus stammered. "I care for you. I… love you."_

 _Lily held up her hands. "No, Severus. If you really loved me, you wouldn't ashamed to be seen with me. You'd take me places. You'd touch me without looking over shoulder to see who was watching."_

" _Lily…"_

" _You're toxic, Sev," Lily said. "You've been toxic for some time now. I've denied it, wanting to see the friend I remember when we were growing up. The things you want to do, the people you hang with, the ideas you spew when you think I'm not listening… Severus. I can't be with you anymore. I can't pretend I'm okay with what you believe because I'm not. I know what you want to do. I know who you want to swear to. I'm making my choice. I'm choosing the people who don't have a problem with me in public, in private, and amongst my friends."_

" _Lily, I really do care for you," he pleaded. "I lo—"_

" _Don't say what you don't mean, Sev," Lily said, her eyes growing cold. "Learn what love is before you claim before you say something like that. I just hope you figure out what it really is… before your horrible friends get you killed. Goodbye, Sev. Don't come and sit outside Gryffindor Tower for me anymore. I won't be coming out again."_

Severus gasped, his black eyes boring into Hermione's as he pressed his palms to both cheeks. "I love you," he breathed. "I will stand by your side until the end of all things. I will hold you to me when no one is looking. I will hold you when they are. I love you." One tear slid down the side of his nose and dripped onto Hermione's cheek.

 _Don't say what you don't mean, Sev._

Severus pressed his lips to hers. "I love you," he repeated.

Hermione smiled at him. "I believe you," she said, guiding his hands to belly, "and she will believe you too."

Severus' eyes widened as he looked down towards her swollen abdomen. "You're sure?"

Hermione's lips curved into a smile. "Severus, I'm a healer. One of the first spells we're taught is the pregnancy detection spell."

"How long have you known?" Severus asked, breathe catching in his throat.

"Two minutes," Hermione replied. "Just after you said you loved me."

Severus wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her against him. He pressed his lips to her temple and closed his eyes.

Decades after his fateful separation from Lily, he had finally figured out what love was, and by some miracle of life, she loved him right back.

"Minerva is coming over this afternoon," Hermione said into his ear. "She wants to help transfigure the perfect nursery."

Severus murmured into her neck. "I suppose this is your way of saying I need to put on pants and look presentable."

Hermione pulled his arms around her body and interlocked them with hers. "We have a few hours before she's flooing in."

"Are you… propositioning me, Madam Snape?"

"Are you complaining?"

"Never," he crooned into her ear.

"Mmm," Hermione answered. "Excellent."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A hundred some years later, the House of Snape was significantly expanded. The main house was filled with their children's joined families, grandchildren, and miscellaneous familiars. A small one-story cottage had been built nearby, and Severus and Hermione had "retired" into it, allowing their children to fuss over and upgrade the larger home. One story had been perfect for them, and it had allowed them to visit and spoil their grandchildren and then surreptitiously leave when their grandkids were sufficiently spoiled.

Hermione had passed on her engagement ring to her daughter, allowing the heirloom of the Snape family to be held to the next generation. Severus, on the other hand, had passed on his pearl engagement ring to their son, who used it to propose to the love of his life he had grown up with. Both Hermione and Severus were as proud as parents could be. Their children had grown up healthy and strong, and the name of Snape was no longer whispered in the same breath with Death Eater and trollop.

Rita Skeeter had, ironically, met her career's end trying to get dirt on the Snape children, hoping to bring more scandal to her sworn enemy: Hermione. Her black-haired and dark-eyed son had, at the tender age of four, transfigured the unregistered Animagus into rat and fed her to the family's eagle-owl. The incident hadn't been fatal thanks to a timely intervention, but Rita had been exposed as an unregistered Animagus when Hermione had to write Rita's situation on the medical record and the Auror's report afterwards.

Many, many cases of Rita's crimes of trespass, spying, and blackmail had come into light, and her numerous cases of using her beetle form to her advantage had landed her with a permanent tracking bracelet from the Auror's Office. It was laced with magical suppression, confining Rita to her human form. Her fall from grace at the hands of a four-year-old's incidental magic had been a relief to many who had suffered under Rita's many scandals, and Harry and Ron had admitted that the young Snape that the boy had his father's ruthlessness and his mother's scary brilliance.

When the older and retired Harry, Ronald, Viktor and Draco began to have tea regularly on the seaside porch as their combined children and grandchildren romped in the waves, they agreed that life had finally given them peace in themselves and each other. Their children mingled together with no thought of blood, and their grandchildren didn't even remember a time when there was even such "a thing."

As the grey-haired elders of the Snape, Potter, Weasley, Krum, and Malfoy family clinked their glasses together one of many sunsets they would share together, all of them remembered the first time they had truly come together. It hadn't been the war that had created the solidarity, in truth. What had brought them together was Hermione and the goal of saving her life. True love had saved her from the curse, but true love had bound them all together. Their love for their friend had broken down the barriers of blood and status. it had not been a Dark Lord that bound them together, though it may have been a push in the right direction. No, what chiseled away at the hate, the memories, and the pain had been love. It had been true love—the love of a friend to another, the love of life over death, and the greater love of person who realises that someone else was meant to be with something they, too, loved. And, like the Mudblood scar and Dark Mark that had faded into memory, so, too, had the old hatreds, the old grudges, and the Old Ways.

Three generations of each family played on the beach, and the future looked very bright indeed.

As Severus' pale hand rested on Hermione's, she squeezed his fingers in her hand and smiled. Unlike his childhood, his children never once doubted their parent's love, and his grandchildren never doubted their parent's love for each other. He could look at Harry Potter and realise that Lily Evans had found her love, her true love, however fleeting. Harry Potter was no longer a testament to a past of hatred pain. He was a testament to the love Lily had found hoping that Severus, too, would one day find it. Lily may not have known that it would take him decades to find it, but he had found it, and he was at peace with his childhood friend's memory. He had found peace with Hermione.

"Nana, nana! Help!" a red messy-haired little child came running up to the porch. "Circinus threw our ball into the surf and it floated out to sea!"

Hermione looked dubious. "You forget how to swim, love?"

Hermione eyed Ronald, who threw up his hands in feigned innocence. "Don't look at me, 'Mione," he pleaded. "It's not my fault children think you're adorable and useful."

Hermione squeezed Severus' hand as she took on her otter form and let Ron's grandchild scoop her up and carry her back to the ocean shore. All of the children laughed and squealed as the squeaky brown otter went diving into the water and used her nose and front paws to drive the runaway ball back to the shore. They chased her down the shore, taking turns holding their ottery prize or trying to hold onto her oily fur as she wriggled free and dove into the surf for her own ends.

By the time the children had tired of trying to keep up with her, perhaps amazed that Hermione still outlasted them, Hermione dragged a mess of lobsters and entangled crabs up from the ocean floor and carried them up to the porch.

"Dinner," Hermione said with a grin, throwing the lobsters down on the porch. She tossed something at Severus, and it landed in his lap.

Severus frowned at first; the wet and slimy bundle was soaking through his robes. He poked it with his hand and realised what it was: an oyster. He cracked it open with a quick wandless spell, exposing the flesh inside.

There, nestled in between the layers of oyster flesh, was a perfect black pearl.

"Happy Anniversary, Severus," Hermione purred, kissing him on the forehead.

Severus clutched the pearl between his index finger and thumb and held it, emotion running through his body. He stared at her with silent adoration.

"Happy Anniversary!" the others on the porch cheered, covering Severus' lap with presents.

As Severus peered out from under the pile of unexpected presents, he saw Hermione's warm eyes staring at him.

"I love you," she mouthed silently.

He shot his arm out and dragged his wife down on top of him, forcing her into his lap with a squeak of protest. She changed into her otter form and clambered over the top of the gifts to peer at him.

Severus snorted, extending his neck to prod her otter nose with his crooked one.

She squeaked at him in otterese and licked his nose.

"I love you too, menace," he said in a soft croon.

"Ugh! Must you be mushy in front of me?" Draco moaned, and multiple wands pointed at him, binding him up in ropes and causing him to tumble down to the porch floor.

"Argh!"Draco yelled. "Why is it always me!"

"Simple, Draco," Severus purred as he dropped one feisty otter down on Draco's bound up body. "Justice."

Everyone on the porch grinned as they watched Hermione tickle Draco's face with her whiskers and slobber all over his nose as her webbed feet kneaded his lips.

"EAGH!" Draco moaned, writhing on the porch floor.

Severus let a smile play about his face as he opened the next gift in his lap. Life was splendid, indeed. His wife was draped over Draco's head as she stared down Draco's nose and kept nipping his nose when he tried to get up.

He placed one hand on Hermione's head, smiling as she rubbed up against his touch like a cat. She squeaked at him lovingly before pegging Draco on the nose again.

"Ow! Dammit, Hermione!" Draco protested. "Why do you have to be so insufferably adorable?"

Severus pulled Hermione into his lap and encouraged her to help unwrap the packages. She grasped a nearby ribbon in her teeth and tugged on it with a determined squeak.

For better or for worse…

Hermione's webbed paw touched his finger, and she squeaked at him.

He, no, they had built a wonderful life together, and he realised that despite all the horrible things that had happened, it is all led to this place amongst family and friends he was proud to call them both.

Hermione nipped his finger to get his attention, and he looked down at her. Somehow she had gotten a ribbon bow on her head, the silver and green bow looked like an elaborate hat. He grinned at her warmly.

It was the better, and he wasn't going to change a thing.

"Some help here," Draco moaned.

"You asked for it, mate," Ron cajoled.

Somehow Draco had managed to free his wand hand just enough to point it at Ron and send him to the ground in ropes.

"Argh!" Ron moaned, falling to the porch floor. One of the nearby lobsters clamped its pincer on his nose. "OW!"

Severus' lips turned up in a small curve. No, he would definitely not change a thing.

 _Fin._

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 **A/N:** This was supposed to be a short… maybe like 2k or something. Well… that obviously didn't happen. *snerk*


End file.
